Michael Giacchino talks Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

I’m still not sure what J.J. Abrams was thinking about when he was working on this movie. Everyone who knows about Star Trek knows that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is considered to be the greatest film in the classic franchise, and that it would be downright suicidal to tamper with it in any way. Well…tamper they did, because Into Darkness, the follow up to Star Trek (2009) is nothing less than a poorly disguised remake of Wrath of Khan, and suffice it to say it did not improve on the original. To sum up the plot in brief: Kirk and his crew must stop the brilliant Khan, along with a renegade Admiral, from causing a full-scale war to break out between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. This includes engaging the superior USS Vengeance and stopping Khan from using it as a means to destroy Starfleet Headquarters! This is also the final film to feature Leonard Nimoy in his role as the original Spock (also known as Spock Prime).

To be fair, Benedict Cumberbatch turns in an excellent performance as the villain, and the main cast performs admirably, but still, the fact remains that the producers chose to rehash old territory, instead of making something new. But I digress…

(for my full thoughts on this film, see: On this day in Film History: Into Darkness? More like a rip-off of Khan )

I was beginning to despair of ever finding an interview for this film when suddenly, out of nowhere, I spotted a video with Giacchino’s name and Into Darkness put together. It seems that while promoting the film, Giacchino gave an interview on the film for a German media site/group (I’m not sure which), and the best part is the interview is nearly ten minutes long! It is so rare to find any lengthy interviews with film composers, so I knew I had to share this one with you.

Giacchino is asked several questions about the process of creating the score for Into Darkness (I apologize in advance because the displayed questions are in German), whether certain characters have their own theme (he discusses Khan’s theme in particular) and what it was like to work on such a legendary franchise. This is not just a regular interview though, there are cuts to footage from the film to show certain themes that the composer is talking about, which makes this interview even more valuable.